Legal News

The main ring leader of the Rochdale sex ring has been revealed and has been jailed after he was found guilty of 30 child rape charges.
Shabir Ahmed, 59, of Oldham, was one of nine men convicted of sex offences against children at Liverpool Crown Court in May.
His identity was kept under wraps as he was facing further charges at that time but now he has been jailed for 19 years.
He has been found guilty at Manchester Crown Court of raping and sexually abusing a girl for more than a decade.
Rachel Smith the prosecutor said Ahmed, of Windsor Road, had treated his victim as a "possession" which he used for his own sexual gratification.
She said he was known to be “a violent and controlling man" who had abused the girl on "an almost weekly basis.
The victim had tried to make him stop, but it was of no purpose, the prosecutor added.
The court was told the victim could not report to the police as an overwhelming sense of shame about what happened to her, had stopped her from going to the police many years.
Ms Smith said the realisation of what he had done to her was always haunting her and she use to have nightmares over it.
Allowing time for the preparation of a pre-sentence report Judge Mushtaq Khokhar adjourned sentencing until August.
After the verdict Detective Chief Superintendent Mary Doyle said that Ahmed’s victim was very brave to have come forward and tell the police about what had happened to her.
She added that the police already knew Ahmed was an integral part of the Rochdale grooming case but now it was also open that he was a habitual offender who had a long history of horrible campaign of abuse where he systematically raped this one victim.
Ahmed was one of the nine men from Rochdale and Oldham who were found guilty of exploiting girls as young as 13 at two takeaway restaurants in the Heywood area of Rochdale.
Ms Doyle said he had been the ringleader of a loosely connected on-street grooming ring and had been the common factor in a group of men who raped and abused girls aged between 13 and 17 at the time of the offences.
The case sparked protests and vandalism in Heywood and caused national debate about the safety of children in care and whether race was a factor in on-street grooming.
Ahmed was found guilty at Liverpool Crown Court of two rapes, aiding and abetting rape, sexual assault and trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
Judge Gerald Clifton who sentenced him in May had said the child abuser was an "unpleasant and hypocritical bully" who was sick enough to have ordered a 15-year-old girl to have sex with one of his fellow gang members as a birthday "treat".